The MeidasTouch Podcast - Jack Smith Gets Closer to Justice and MAGA gets Crazier

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we bring you the latest news of the week to keep you informed! On today’s show, we discuss the bombshell news of Special Counsel Jack Smith issuing a subpoena for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to appear before the grand jury, what is going on with the Fulton County Foreperson after her television and print appearances, Mike Pence’s latest attacks on Social Security and Medicare, Donald Trump’s trip to East Palestine after his removal of Obama-Biden safety restrictions led to the horrific incident, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incessant calls for a secession, Democrats’ historic victories in Tuesday’s elections & much more! New full-length episodes of the MeidasTouch Podcast featuring the brothers are released every Tuesday & Friday morning. The rest of the week, enjoy our short-form content we call ‘The Mighty.’ If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Henson Shaving: Visit HensonShaving.com/MEIDAS to pick the razor for you and use code ‘MEIDAS’ for 2 years worth of free blades! Lomi: Visit Lomi.com/MEIDAS and use code ‘MEIDAS’ and checkout to save $50! Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario special counsel jack smith subpoenaed both ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in connection with the special counsel's criminal investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 election interference. Fox and MAGA Republican leader Marjorie Taylor Greene combining forces, teaming up to promote Marjorie Taylor Greene's treasonous campaign for a national divorce for secession by red states. This, folks, is the state of the Republican Party in 2023. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. compelled Donald Trump to sit for a two-hour deposition in Peter Strzok's wrongful termination lawsuit that was filed against Bill Barr and the FBI back in 2019. The Fulton County special grand jury leader, also known as a forewoman, went on a media tour.

Her appearances were questionable, to say the least. But I don't believe, from my legal perspective, will materially impact anything there. But we did learn that Mark Meadows invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which may be the approach he takes with Special Counsel Jack Smith. But one of the things I want to emphasize there when we talk about it, though, is just how careful Jack Smith has been and why it's so important. The MAGA Republicans who are responsible for the train derailment and burning of the toxic substances from the train in East Palestine, Ohio, turned their disinformation machine into overdrive this week to try and blame

their conduct, which, let's be very clear, it was their conduct which caused what took place to happen on Pete Buttigieg and Biden and the Democrats. So the MAGA Republicans are the arsonists who set the fire, who then burn down the fire department. They terminate the employment of all of the firefighters and they turn off the water to help corporations. And then they just show up, start throwing hamburgers at people, and here's 12 pallets of water. Go take it. And then they take a victory lap. Let's dismantle this MAGA disinformation machine. We'll break it down here on the Midas Touch podcast. And this week's boogeyman of the week, there's always a boogeyman of the week for the MAGA Republicans

because they stand for nothing and fall for everything. So how are they scaring their base this week? Is it Mr. Potato Head? Is it Dr. Seuss? Is it the Green M&M? Is it a new Disney movie that's too woke for them? No, it's Legos. Legos goes woke, too woke for them? No. It's Legos. Legos

goes woke. Too woke Legos. And then also, ChatGPT AI, too woke as well. ChatGPT AI is a woke leftist plot to control people. I'm not making

this up. This is what they are promoting on Fox. But with all the MAGA chaos and destruction and the media kind of buying into all the BS like they did with the red wave, the American people are smarter than this. They really are. And there's a reason that in these various special elections that have taken place across the country, Democrats are overperforming because the contrast between this radical, weirdo, incompetent, fascist, MAGA Republican base and Democrats just being normal could not be clearer. So let's talk about some of these special elections where Democrats have overperformed. I want to hit on that. Also, the Biden administration has implemented a plan to do things, right? Like

this week, it's lowering housing costs for lower and middle income homebuyers, right? Pretty normal. We're not going Legos, Legos and Dr. Seuss. Folks, this is the Midas Touch Podcast. I'm Ben Mycelis, joined by my brothers, Brett and Jordy Mycelis. Quite the show we have for all of you today. Quite the show. I am so excited to be here. So excited to be with the Midas Mighty. Yeah, it goes to show you that we talk about the performative antics of the Republican Party a lot, but the Republican antics, while they are distractions, they are often also deadly. And we're seeing the results of these deadly distractions. And so what do they do when something deadly happens as a result of their distractions? It's pivot, it's distract more, it's what's the next thing that we could get angry about? How could we deflect blame? How

could we do whatever it is to make sure that the people who are being affected by this disaster do not realize that we are the ones who caused it? So very fascinating to watch this unfold live the Republicans push the narrative of the red wave, right, is, and then the media networks like buy into the red wave, feels very similar to how they've just clearly pushed this utterly false narrative that somehow Buttigieg is to blame. And then the media cannot critically think. And so it's incumbent on the people to push back on the narrative and break it down. Jordy. Absolutely. No, Ben, you're spot on, brothers. I cannot wait for tonight's show. I shaved my back right before we went into the air because it makes me a little bit more aerodynamic if you guys are going to come at me with insults like you did on Monday's show. Aerodynamic, right? Are you flying? I don't even understand.

Basically, yeah. You don't know where I'm going to be. Just don't know. So I'm excited for tonight's show. I'm concerned now, but okay. Always a good show when Jordy shaves his back right before. I'm not sure if you know, our other best show was about three months ago. Jordy also shaved his back for that show. True. Check the records. A little TMI for the audience, in my opinion. But whatever you want to reveal, man, I mean, let's go crazy. Hey, I'm an open book. Jordy is an open book. Well, let's open the book of this episode of the Midas Touch podcast and let's start with chapter one, special counsel, Jack Smith. Sometimes those transitions are so flawless that

I just want to ruin the flawlessness of it by commenting on the flawlessness of it. Let me be clear. Special counsel, Jack Smith has subpoenaed both Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in connection with his criminal investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 election interference. We know that both Ivanka and Jared were also deposed by the January 6th committee. We've seen their deposition testimony there. What the January 6th committee focused on was what they saw and observed really pretty much in December when Ivanka stated that she was confident that Donald Trump had lost the election. And what happened on January 6th itself, you'll recall that Jared Kushner was in the Middle East trying to seal the deal on his

quid pro quo with Saudi Arabia, where they gave him $2 billion to manage their sovereign wealth fund money after Trump would leave. So Kushner flew back from the Middle East. I'm not sure he was doing that deal, but he definitely wasn't doing anything out there that was helpful to our country. And that deal was announced shortly after that meeting and shortly after Trump left office. So I think I can make that connection with a fair degree of confidence. But Kushner showed back up. So he was there on January 6th.

Ivanka was there in the White House. She saw Donald Trump call and threaten former Vice President Mike Pence and tell him, you better object or else. So she saw that call actually go down. She was there on the ellipse itself. She could see her in the tent like when Don Jr. and Guilfoyle or whatever her name is, they were dancing and celebrating. It's the most dystopian. She was right at the epicenter of everything that happened on January 6th for sure. But here's the thing that I think Jack Smith is focused on in addition to that. Jack Smith, even more so than the January 6th committee, has been very focused on the potential financial crimes by Donald Trump.

Felony campaign finance law violations, money laundering. And one of the things that Trump did is he had people very close to him, which essentially it's obvious that Trump's controlling, create these middlemen organizations that basically received about $769 million. And when you create these like straw men organizations or these just like kind of shell companies that receive the money, the committees have to report where the money goes. So they report that it goes to these LLCs, but then you can't see once the LLC gets it, where the LLC routes all of the money. For all we know, they route it back to Trump or they're routing it back to- Literally anywhere.

Literally anywhere. But $769 million went to these entities. We know that Jack Smith's subpoenas, not to Ivanka or Jared, we don't know, no one knows the content of those, but in some of his others have been very much focused on the financial crimes. And remember, there's at least two criminal grand juries. There's the one about election interference, and then there's the one about Trump's theft of government records as well. So I think it is within special counsel Jack Smith's purview to also, in connection with the document investigation, to say, was Trump making deals before he left the White House with foreign governments like Saudi Arabia, like Qatar, like UAE? And Jared Kushner may have those answers.

So I do think that could fall at the outer end of Jack Smith's jurisdiction with respect to both matters. And we know Jack Smith has been questioning people based on other reporting that's gone out about Trump's relationships and plans post-presidency with these foreign countries. So I want to add that insight as well. But look, special counsel Jack Smith, we're going to compare it in a little bit to what is going on in Fulton County. This is textbook stuff right here by Jack Smith. This is done at the highest level. The expression, good things come to those who wait. There's a reason for that sometimes. And here there is just a high degree of maintaining

confidentiality. It's being run like the equivalent of a seal, like the Navy seals. It's at the highest level. And that could be frustrating from an information gathering standpoint, but I'd rather be frustrated than perpetually let down in the final outcome. Ben, what does Jack Smith sound like? That's how tight of a ship he's running. I don't know what the guy- Hey, everybody, I'm Jack Smith. Hey, everybody, this is Jack Smith. There's no shame in that game if that's his voice. I'm just saying he's running such a tight ship. I don't even know what the guy sounds like.

You got to admit, though, it'd be a little bit of a disappointment. Slightly, slightly. Slightly, yes. Hey, how you doing? It's me, Jazzy. Do you guys – There are videos, to be fair. There are videos of him speaking online.

If Jack Smith talked like Mickey Mouse, that would be like – Woo-hoo-hoo. It's me, Jackie Smith. We're me and the kids. This show has already gone off the rails. Okay, so here's also what I want. If I could catch myself, here's also what I want. I would like to specify that Jack Smith, this subpoena, was also to call Ivanka and Jared before the criminal grand jury

that is impaneled, which I think is important to note. This isn't just a, hey, come in, let's have some coffee. Let's chat. This is in front of the criminal grand jury, which shows how far this thing is escalating. And now, Ben, I'll do the impression. Maybe I'll do my Mickey Mouse voice. My impression of your Mickey Mouse is pretty good. Right? That's me. I don't even know what it is, honestly. But I'm going to play the role of like

a troll commenter who's commenting to when we report Ivanka and Jared subpoenaed. Right now! It's too late! They're running out the clock! What are we going to do? Trump's never going to be indicted. You're fooling yourselves. Woohoo. How do you respond to that? Wow. Wow. That's a lot to...

That's how I read the comment. I'm just letting you know, that's how I read the troll comments when they come in. This is a diligent investigation. I share the sentiments from many people that, no, I do share. Look, there needs to be action and there needs to be action soon. But at the same time, special counsel Jack Smith is dotting every I and crossing every T and making sure the way testimony is presented that not only will you get a conviction, but that on the appeals process that convictions will not be overturned. And so the process is playing out the way the process should play out. Unfortunately, even though I think that there's nobody above the law. Certainly former presidents have the ability to avail themselves of ways to damage our

constitutional protections of the executive branch if that's the way they choose to go. We always talk about things with Trump being, well, this is unprecedented. This is the first time that someone who's not in office like this is claiming the executive privilege right now. So Trump's going to do whatever he can do, whatever crazy, insane, and illegal theory is out there, he will pursue and throw up those roadblocks. And this is why elections ultimately have consequences. But to be very clear, we're going to talk about Fulton County in a little bit. We had Michael Cohen host the political beatdown with me earlier in the day. Cohen said that he will be showing up next week for an interview with the district attorney's office in Manhattan as he prepares to go before

the grand jury there in the next 20 to 30 days. So that was pretty big news that Michael Cohen broke here. And even there, Brett, I saw comments that were very critical of Alvin Bragg. And I respect it. I understand why to be critical of Alvin Bragg. I will say this. Can I say, you know, when you'd have a weather forecast and, you know, then you look at the weather forecast, you look at the clouds, you know, you see the cumulonimbus clouds. I mean, it's raining out here. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. I got an- Meteorologist Ben. Wow. Cumulonimbus. Wow. Big words. here wow yeah yeah i got a meteorologist ben wow wow big words i did i did get first in my class

when did you start studying meteorology ben tell me the truth i jack smith tell me the truth i finished i got i got a i think i got an a in my earth science class in ninth grade congrats mr mr ward so mean, I'm pretty confident. I know my cumulonimbus clouds, but so as the cumulonimbus, as the cloud, listen, as the clouds are coming, every data point in the world suggests that Alvin Bragg is going to indict

Donald Trump individually. And soon, you know what I'm not? Oh no, soon, soon. Like, no, the grand juries, we know that there's a grand jury impaneled. We know from Michael Cohen that he's going to be going before that grand jury. It's a grand jury with the power to indict. By May, June, the latest, Trump's going to be indicted by Alvin Bragg. And so I do want to reserve my criticism of him until I see the final outcome, because I think once Trump is indicted by Alvin Bragg, I think that Bragg's prior moves, I believe, will be forgiven. And he'll be the first. He may be the first DA that actually gets the indictment

and conviction. And remember, Bragg is also working with Letitia James. They're teaming up on a lot of these prosecutions together as well. And there's the civil trial that's going to shut down the Trump entity. A trial set to go to October 3rd of 2023. That's big. Wow. That's big news in the civil case. That's going to trial. Trump is going to trial in the E. Jean Carroll case in April. Right. That,

that case goes to Trump's going to sit for as a witness there. We're going to talk in a little bit, how a federal judge ordered Trump's deposition in the Peter Strzok wrongful termination case. But think about it. Peter Strzok filedok wrongful termination case. But think about it. Peter Strzok filed the wrongful termination case when? August of 2019, right? And so here, 2019, do you think Peter Strzok didn't want Donald Trump's deposition right away? Do you think Peter Strzok was like, you know what? I really want to wait until until March of 2023 to get Trump's deposition.

No, our court system is completely backlogged to begin with. So if you're watching this or listening to this, if you have a court case, you know if you're not a former president, if you've been through the legal system in a civil case or even a criminal case, you know that that could take four to five years if you're not a former president. So think about the process where now somebody can claim executive privilege and can claim constitutional immunities that have been recognized by the Supreme Court, not for Donald Trump. Like remember this, why isn't Peter Strz Court, not for Donald Trump. Remember this, why isn't Peter Strzok even suing Donald Trump individually? Because there's a case called

Fitzgerald versus Nixon, which gave presidents immunity based on their powers under Article 2 of the United States Constitution, 100% civil immunity if their conduct, even if unlawful, is within the course and scope of their constitutional duties. So in Fitzgerald versus Nixon, I think it's an 82 or an 84 Supreme Court case, even though Nixon may have terminated Fitzgerald unlawfully for Fitzgerald testifying publicly against Nixon, court said you can't sue. You can't sue Nixon for that. And that's not a new doctrine. That doctrine has been established over the years. So I want you just to think about that. You have the regular delays of trial, plus you have a former president. And if it wasn't Trump, if this was just a regular

person who's in the suit, it would take this long. I do law cases all the time. I have cases that are in 2023 that were filed in like 2016. And it's not because I don't want them to go to trial. And then when you think about, wait a minute, like Letitia James's lawsuit was filed in September of 2022, and that's going to trial in October of 2023, you think about it like that, and it's kind of expedited. You think when Alvin Bragg won to when a likely indictment's going to take place, in the swing of things, based on how the law system plays out, it's certainly not the pace that any of us would like it. And so I'm very sympathetic to that,

but I do want to kind of give you that perspective on things, which is, and you can be upset with that, but it's just the reality of our court system. Yeah. And I would add, from my perspective as a non-lawyer, it's those kind of situations and those sorts of gaps in the law or things that are just kind of norms rather than actual official policy. What I'm trying to say is that Trump and these corrupt Republicans will use any opportunity and any vacuum of information, any time period that passes, any sort of norms that are out there in order to spread disinformation, in order to take advantage of those systems. And they will do it in every aspect of life.

That's how they kind of govern. That's really the governing philosophy of MAGA and of Trump. It's honestly part of what's made Trump, Trump and why he was able to rise because you have a bunch of other people around him in the political space or in the legal space playing by one set of rules. And he simply ignores all those rules and pushes forward. Truth be damned, law be damned, whatever. And the systems haven't been able to quite catch up with it. And we've seen that with the East Palestine disaster that we saw over there. We see that with the legal system. We see how he's trying to take advantage right now of the jury foreperson, the grand jury foreperson. He will always use those weaknesses and those flaws in

those systems, and he will exploit them for his own gain. And we see that time and time again. The thing I love about this show is how we could go from Mickey Mouse voices to very serious and integral conversations about what's going on right here. Ben, your analysis right there is so spot on. And Brett, I love your point too. But Ben, when you really break it down from that perspective of someone who is a lawyer to just understand, well, actually, maybe this is moving at a little bit of more expedited pace. When we look at, for example, your case from 2016, that's going to trial in 2023 or whatnot. I mean, it is something that people have to just realize. And we've never been the channel or the people to say, it's going to happen next week. It's

happening here. We're not queuing on predicting dates here. What we're doing is just letting the audience know based on the set of facts that we have, how things are moving forward and how we ultimately feel that things will go. And here's the thing. And I want to address two of the comments that I saw quickly. One, Trump is not going to be able to run out the clock on Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, or Fonny Willis. He's not going to be able to run out the clock on New York Attorney General Letitia James with that trial in October of 2023. He's not going to be able to run out the clock with E. Jean Carroll. He's not going to be able to run out the clock with the various cases where he's now been sanctioned over $1 million for. He's not going to be able to run out the clock on any of that. Even with my analysis, and I'm not saying this to make you feel good,

I would tell you where my layers of concern are if I was. He's not going to be able to run out the clock. And then the other thing I saw is that why did all these other lawyers resign on Alvin Bragg? There are two lawyers mainly who resigned, right? There's Pomerantz and Dunn who were brought in by Cy Vance and they had a very certain perspective of how they wanted to run things. Alvin Bragg has a different perspective. Although Alvin Bragg lost those two individuals because Alvin Bragg shut down the grand jury of Cy Vance. Alvin Bragg since has started a new grand jury and he's brought in Matthew Colangelo. And Matthew Colangelo was the number three person at the Justice Department, one of the top people at the New York Attorney

General's office. And Cohen, by the way, who was very critical of Alvin Bragg. Like Cohen was the number one person saying like, what in the world is going on with Bragg? He needs to resign. Words to that effect. Cohen since said, I don't want to misquote Cohen on that one, but it was very strong sentiments.

It was very strong sentiments against Bragg. But Cohen said, and this is what I mean about just presenting you with the data. Cohen said, I've seen this team. I have the same amount of confidence, if not more, in this team than I do about the prior team. They've gone through every document. They're very diligent. The plane is taking off. I think it's going to land in the area of justice. I couldn't be more confident in this team. So all I'm reflecting everybody is just that data point and those data points that I see. And speaking about not being able to run out the clock

here, we mentioned this earlier, but let's just touch on it quickly, is the deposition of Donald Trump that was ordered by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a federal court judge in Washington, D.C. If Brett thinks I'm able to read that minute order, it's a very small minute order for those just listening on audio. But I could summarize it because I've read it earlier. And it is compelling Donald Trump and Christopher Wray to sit for a two-hour deposition each. They were identified basically in that order as what's called apex employees, meaning that before you can get their deposition because they sit on top of their respective institutions and organizations, obviously a former president and the head of the FBI, you have to show that they possess

unique information that nobody else in the world could testify about before you can get the apex person's deposition. So what that minute order says is that Peter Strzok has made that showing. And how did he make the showing? Well, the FBI recommended that he be suspended for 60 days. Just to remind you, Peter Strzok was the top FBI official in connection with the Mueller investigation. And the Republicans got his text messages, which showed he was having an affair with an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, and had stated in 2015, 2016, that he was not a fan of Donald Trump, which the Republicans used to basically say, this shows that Strzok has complete bias, and that shows that this is a witch hunt.

And the FBI recommended a 60-day suspension. And then Trump kind of intervened and basically terminated Strzok and made sure he was terminated. And Strzok said, look, what I say in my private text messages is protected by my First Amendment speech. I don't have to like Donald Trump, but I'm going to be a professional. Let me remind you, Peter Strzok was part of the investigation into Hillary Clinton and her laptop. So it's not like Strzok was not doing that. And as Strzok said when he's testified before Congress, nobody was accusing me of weaponization when I did that investigation. This is what I do as an FBI official. He's the top counterintelligence FBI official. So they put him on the top counterintelligence FBI cases. But finally, Strzok's going to get to take the deposition of Donald Trump, but there's one proviso.

The one thing that the judge says in that minute order with that very small text, is that she's requesting that the current Department of Justice and Biden present their opinion in a brief about whether they're going to assert executive privilege on behalf of Donald Trump with respect to the issue of the case involving this wrongful termination. Do I think that the Biden administration is going to invoke executive privilege here? See, this is where I'm not going to lie to you, and this is where I always tell you the truth. There's a possibility that I think that Merrick Garland, and everyone's going to be angry at Merrick Garland when he does this, but I think that there actually is a possibility that Merrick Garland is going to invoke executive privilege here on behalf of Donald Trump. And it's because of the institution, and this is where we're like, whoa, Ben, what are you talking about? Because of that case I told you

from 1982, which is the case that says that presidents are entitled to complete immunity from the Supreme Court involving wrongful terminations, it is possible that based on that precedent that Merrick Garland says, look, to be very clear, the Department of Justice under Biden has not invoked executive privilege on any matters related to the insurrection. Why? Because it's their view that that's outside the constitutional scope, right? Trying to overthrow the constitution is not within the constitutional scope. But because presidents are the leaders of the executive branch and have the hiring and firing powers, one of the things that falls within that scope is hiring and firing. And what the Supreme Court

said in 1982 in Fitzgerald versus Nixon is even if it's wrongful, a president could have immunity from that. What's interesting here though, is it's just a deposition. So it's not that Trump is being sued. So that's why ultimately do I think that Merrick Garland is going to invoke executive privilege? No. But you'll also remember that Merrick Garland took that position in the E. Jean Carroll case, that what Trump was saying in the first press conference back in 2019 was within the course and scope, following the long line of precedent about inofficial capacity giving a press conference. Now, do I personally agree with it? No. And do I think Merrick Garland's going to invoke it here? I don't know. Possible. But I think more likely no. But I want to give you the reasoning so that you get a fair understanding, at least of what the legal analysis is here.

And there's a broader point here, right, which is about our system. The vulnerabilities within our constitutional system to fascism, I think, are so pronounced. You see the vulnerabilities. The institution, though, is actually held, fortunately, because Democrats controlled the House of Representatives at the right time and because of the courts. But be very clear, this is where MAGA is going. Large media networks are not doing us any favors, which we'll talk about when we talk about what took place at East Palestine and how we can combat that disinformation. But it is good news. I do want to strike a celebratory tone, though, that Trump has been compelled to be deposed. I think that

that will happen, but I want to hedge slightly based on the precedent of presidents being involved in wrongful termination and just always want to speak real to the mighty out there. Well, Ben, you got to give it to them straight. This isn't Fox, right? We're not trying to just give them what they want to hear. They got to know the actual truth, the facts, even if it's not exactly 100% aligned with their beliefs. And sometimes there are structural reasons for it. Sometimes it's kind of BS, but that's the legal system for you. I think we should probably move over now. I really want to get your take, Ben, on this Fulton County foreperson, somebody who we've been speaking about quite a bit here. I know a lot of people are up in arms about this. And if you

haven't heard about this, although I think by now, basically everybody has seen the clips. I don't even think we have to go back and play them. The foreperson of the special grand jury that was convened in Fulton County, Georgia, has surfaced in a series of press interviews, seemingly on every cable channel and news outlet imaginable. She's on this press tour. It's highly unusual. We've never really seen anything like this. She's a very fascinating character. She's

revealed a lot of very interesting information. There are more than over a dozen indictment recommendations that Mark Meadows pled the fifth. She went on these very odd and bizarre rants about, oh my gosh, when I got to meet Rudy Giuliani before he left, I just had to say, Mr. Rudy Giuliani, can I please shake your hand, Rudy Giuliani? Oh my gosh. And Lindsey Graham, you are so amiable. And oh my gosh, what a delight to speak to you. And it would be so amazing if Donald Trump, if I was able to bring Donald Trump in here and subpoena him and say, Mr. Donald Trump, do you promise to tell the truth? That would be so cool. Oh my gosh. It was just right off the bat. It was oddball. It's weird. It's weird. Does it have an effect on the case? And what do,

what the heck do you make of this and ben just just for our audience too can you explain the role of a four person just just like let's take it from step one here the four person is selected by you know it could be a four man or four women or four person of a jury who is selected by the jury to basically be their leader. They sign the verdict form if it was like a normal jury trial or in the case of a grand jury or here the special grand jury which makes recommendations for indictments. The four person signs on behalf of all of the people who comprise the special grand jury. There were 26 people who comprised

the special grand jury. There were 23 kind of day-to-day people, and there were three alternates as well. One of the functions of a four-person, though, was also to kind of organize the discussions, streamline the discussions, set kind of timelines and processes of, all right, let's go through this individual and who votes this way, who votes that way, kind of just like the captain of the team, if you will, and the person selected by all of the other grand jurors for that role. And you may say, like, is it based on talent experience? I think that they said in this in the special grand jury report, there was nobody. The portions that were released, there were no people with any specialized legal skills.

Remember, like a jury doesn't have to have lawyers, doesn't have to be made up of specialized professionals who know the law. In fact, it's supposed to be a group of just regular American citizens. Regular people and people who, by the way, aren't even intimately familiar with the issues at hand. And so this person apparently never even heard the famous Georgia call that we all heard so many times. I don't even think she voted in the last election. I think the judge came out today with a statement or in one of his filings and said that it was no problem that she was speaking. I mean, I think she had a right ultimately to speak. When I watch it and I see the kind of outrage and everything with it,

my kind of main takeaway is like, is it weird? Yes. I mean, it's totally weird. Is it that big of a deal? I really don't think so. I think, like I said in the beginning of this, you have Donald Trump, you have MAGA, you have all these people. They're going to try to find vulnerabilities and anything that they possibly can to try to poke holes in the case. Now, where I have trouble is putting all the blame on this woman. It's a difficult thing for me. And in watching the reaction, the visceral reaction from people, I honestly, I think I have a different take than a lot of people about this juror. And that I kind of empathize with her a little bit.

And I feel bad. I mean, she is a normal person from Georgia who at random was selected to be on this grand jury and was made the foreperson of the grand jury. Yes, it was her decision to go out and speak to the press, but this is somebody who's never been in the spotlight before, who's not media trained, who's not a Hollywood person or anything, who's all of a sudden being thrust into the biggest consequential legal case maybe ever. And she's naturally excited about it and wants to speak about it. And I've just seen so much hate been thrown her way. And I like even looking through comments when I saw people posting on it and comments from people who consider themselves progressive. I saw comments yesterday as I was going through the internet, as I was going through Twitter

and all the apps of people going, lock her up, throw her in prison. She needs to go to jail for life. Give her the death penalty. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is kind of messed up. I think here what we have to do is we need to make sure that the people in power of the investigations have the investigations under control. And we can't just be so quick to try to destroy anybody. I know everybody is eager to get convictions, eager to get indictments,

but I don't think that's an excuse to go and go on the attack and just be ruthless against this person. I mean, all of a sudden- I'm going to check you there a little bit because people who reflected that way have been waiting a very long time for Donald Trump to be held accountable. And things all seem to be heading in the right direction. Our democracy is on the line right here. And while our democracy is on the line, while things are going very good, to have someone who, look, when she spoke to the New York Times, when she spoke to Associated Press, I did a hit right after that where I basically said, I thought everything she did there was fine Press, I did a hit right after that where I basically said, I thought everything she did there was fine, and I thought it was actually appropriate.

I think I even complimented the earlier things that she said, because I thought that she actually did a good job threading the needle. And then I think that she liked the way that looked in print, and then she wanted to do all of these TV shows and when the media is calling you and hey, we're going to put you on prime time. It's not like just like Don Lemon calls or whoever, it's a bad example, but whoever the person especially right now, whoever is calling her, who's ever calling from the networks, they have people who make you feel really good and really special. Totally.

You're going to be a star. And one of the things I mentioned on the, you know, but also if you're the foreperson of such a significant investigation, you may not know going into it, but by the time you're done with it, you have to have a sense of how big this is and to really tread very carefully and to recognize. And Brett, in no way do I justify people saying horrible things about her, but I also empathize with people who are like, what are you doing? 100%. And by the way, I feel that way too. I just think it went from pretty quickly,

what are you doing? Please stop talking. Do not jeopardize this case to like, someone needs to imprison this person and this person like, and that escalation happens very quickly online. Yeah. Let me give you the thing though. Here, there's two things. There's a special grand jury and then there's a grand jury too. The special grand jury, and this is just a weird Georgia procedure. This isn't like something that exists everywhere else.

It's like very unique within the Fulton County Superior Court system that you have a special grand jury which is making recommendations about indictments. So in terms of the prejudice being caused, Donald Trump is out there on social media saying the craziest stuff each and every day. If any prejudice is being caused, it's his conduct that he's engaging in every day. The special grand jury is not making the ultimate indictment decisions. Who's making the ultimate indictment decisions is the grand jury. My question though is really one to Fawnie Willis right now though as well, because over 35 or 40 days ago, she said charging decisions are imminent.

And when you are a district attorney, as she is in Fulton County, and there is this special grand jury, as Judge Robert McBurney knows, I think to your point, Brett, Robert McBurney wanted to actually give cover to this foreperson today as well and basically be like, I get it. Remember, McBurney wanted to release the full report. And it was actually Fawnie Willis who said, only release sections one, the opening, the conclusion, and section eight, which says that certain people committed perjury, doesn't list their names, and recommends indictment for those people. But McBurney was like, this is a public document. Let's release it all. And it was Fawnie Willis who said, don't release it. We need to protect the due process rights of peoples whose names

may be in there because charging decisions are imminent. So Judge Robert McBurney, the judge overseeing this whole process was like, okay, okay, I won't release it. But McBurney, even in the order that he issued, not this past Monday, the Monday before it, he even said, keep me updated on what the process is. So my broader question is, what you should do, have the grand jury ready to go as soon as the special grand jury ends or start the grand jury, even while the special grand jury is still in session so that you can then just give the report over to the grand jury so you can minimize the days of when this stuff can happen. And if you remember my analysis from, was the last one or two pods ago, I said, let me tell you what Trump is trying to do here. Because when Trump posts on his social media platform, thank you, Fulton County special

grand jury, my name's not mentioned, total exoneration. I said, look, he's an idiot. So maybe you don't read into it too much. Everything he says is complete disinformation. But remember what I said. I said, he is trying to bait a member of the grand jury. It's word for word. He's trying to bait someone or bait the media to go find someone from the grand jury to get them to speak and to talk about it. So then Trump could play the victim card and say, oh, my due process rights have been violated. I'm the victim now. I'm the victim. That's what he did. He planted that seed. And you can't expect as a district attorney or the judge for such a period of time that nobody's going to speak. And just to be clear though, will this give Trump and all the other individuals who

are likely going to be indicted, I don't know for a fact Trump's going to be indicted in there, but is it going to give them an argument that they could make? Sure. They're going to make a bunch of arguments too. They're going to say, Fawnie Willis has conflicts of interest and that it's a politicized weapon. They're going to make every argument. So to give them another argument amongst other not great arguments, you just gave them another argument that like, why? But to be clear to everybody here, I know there's a lot of doomsayers who have gone on the media networks and said, this is horrible. This is the worst thing ever. It is certainly not ideal. But to me, it is not going to crush the investigation. But where I have questions though is really when someone tells me something is imminent, charging decisions are imminent, that means imminent. That means imminent to me. And if you go back to, I had

six months ago or so, some criticisms of Fawnie Willis and her speaking to the media the way she was talking to the media. And I said back then, I was like, and some of the Midas Mighty were like, Ben, but I'm like, I don't think she should be going on the media like that. I'm not sure that's a helpful thing to this versus just be quiet about it. Just get it done. Check the box. Let's go. So that's my view about it. To summarize, I wouldn't worry about it at all in terms of, oh, is Trump going to get off? No, that's not going to happen. They'll make an argument. They're going to lose the argument. But that's my view about it. And they're going to make a hundred other arguments also. And I think

that also, I think the fact that this is a different grand jury than the grand jury that will actually be handing down the indictments, I think that's a major thing also, which makes this ultimately a non-story. But I think the backlash and just the press coverage that this is all receiving right now, I think it's exactly why we see special counsel Jack Smith running his investigation in such a methodical manner, which ironically often leads to people criticizing him as, oh, he's going too slow. When are we going to hear more? When are we going to hear more? But what we can't do is confuse the silence of Jack Smith, which we were joking about earlier and giving him funny voices,

for weakness. It's actually a sign of strength, and it's going to be the thing that provides the best chance at the end of the day for not only for indictments, but for convictions. And I think we should all be on board with what is going to be the best plan going ahead in order to secure indictments and convictions. And that's why I deeply admire the work that Jack Smith is doing and watching how he's speaking mainly through his legal filings. And we are hearing things in bits and pieces. He's not coming out and yelling to the media. We're not seeing all this other drama around it. It's just, he's putting his head down. He's doing the work. That's the way it should be done.

Right on. It feels like we're moving away from this topic right now, wrapping up this one on the four person. But just before we finally close out, just my take on the whole situation, specifically why the visceral reaction from people that we've seen on social media and on TV and all these pundits, most people just don't know the law as well as Ben, as you do, Brett, as much as you study it. And so when they see something like this, like this forward person going on this media tour, the optics of it aren't great. I mean, that's the understatement of the year yeah it's an information gap yeah oh no just just ultimately even if there actually are no legal ramifications from this which from our understanding there are there are going to be none the optics of it and just the ammunition that this gives fox news donald trump

all these right-wing trolls and and their pundits. I mean, it just goes on for... It's a self-inflicted wound, even if it has no real tangible effects on the case at hand. And people, I think, generally on the pro-democracy side of things are all on the same page in regards to everybody, no matter your thoughts on the four person, no matter your thoughts on Jack Smith or Merrick Garland, whether you think he's the worst attorney general in history or whether you think he's doing an amazing job, no matter what, I think everybody just wants to, I think everybody is scared that our democracy is being taken from us. Everybody wants to see justice. And so people are reasonably frazzled anytime there is a wrench thrown in that. And I can't knock anybody for it. It's a tough

time for people, but I think emotions are high. But I think at the end of the day, we need to all kind of pull ourselves down to earth and say, listen, we all want the same thing. We all want justice. We all want to preserve and protect this democracy. And we need to do the best thing possible in order to do that. We're all on the same team here, folks. And there's things that we can do, right? There's things that each and every one who are part of this pro-democracy, we can be doing. And I've always said why we started Midas Touch is that I felt like, I felt like, who can I rely on? You know, like, I felt like I got to do something. I got to do something. Like, I can't just sit back and hope that there's going to be this person or that person or this investigation or this is going

to be the change, right? There has to be a pro-democracy community, an authentic pro-democracy community that is no longer an exhausted majority, but is an active majority, is a majority that is going to push back against the election disinformation, that's going to call fascists fascists, that's going to point out each and every day and each and every minute of every day, like we do here on the Midas Touch Network, what the stakes are, who these fascists are, and make sure that we are exposing that and we collectively are delivering the truth. That's what we can all control collectively together. And Brett, I'm pissed. We're all pissed. You got Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Lauren Boebert's and Donald Trump's prancing around, calling for secession, praising Vladimir Putin and praising

Kim Jong-un and wanting to terminate our constitution. And so I'm with everybody. It's like enough. Lock these disgusting treasonous traitors up and throw away the key because these are evil people who hate our country. And we need to say it directly. We need to say it unapologetically. And the both sides media of them, well, you know, you saw I did that hit where when Trump held that bizarre rally at some airport conference room, which held like a maximum of like 650 people in the conference room, which he called Club 45. It's like, dude, it's the Hilton Airport conference room, it's like Club 45. And he talked about how he trusts Vladimir Putin more than our

intelligence community. And he praised Kim Jong-un and he, you know, continued and continued to like, just denigrate our great nation and our troops and just say the most bizarre stuff. Like I read one of those local media reports, and I'm not sure if this one was from one of those Sinclair local media companies, but they were just like Trump touts common sense approach, like Trump common sense. He's calling for a civil war. He's calling for the destruction of our democracy. You know, like, let's like, let's be real here. And look, I want to show you this. Now, this is, you know, we've been talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene's campaign, and she's not a fringe character in the Republican Party. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the top leaders of

Republicans in 2023. The MAGA Republican Party is the Republican Party, and she's probably one of their top three or four most powerful politicians who make decisions over everybody's lives. And you may go, well, she's all of the things that she is, absolutely, but let's recognize the power that she has in that party. Essentially, Kevin McCarthy, the weakest speaker of the house in the American history, is her puppet. She tells him what to do. She tells Kevin McCarthy, turn over 41,000 hours of surveillance footage, even though the Capitol police are saying that if you turn it over, you're going to jeopardize our national security. He hands it over to Tucker Carlson,

who just over the weekend, we learned, we obviously knew Tucker was a propagandist, but we see the text messages of him calling Fox viewers and all of the people who spread election disinformation, effing lunatics and idiots, but says it's going to hurt our stock price if we don't spread election disinformation and that Fox needs to fire everybody who's actually telling the truth. We have those messages. So what does the leader of the Republican Party do? The Speaker of the House turns over 41,000 hours of footage that the Capitol Police says can be used by future insurrectionists to inspire more insurrections. They learn where the safe rooms are. They'll learn about the locations. Here, I'm not going to turn it over to the public. I'm going to give it to Tucker Carlson.

What is more Putin-esque than that right there? But I digress for a moment. But you have, and by the way, you got sean hannity who's painting his face like painting his face he's he's he's orange now like he's full oompa loompa trumper right like i mean sean hannity it's ridiculous go go go find try to find the photo while i talk of sean hannity like who's like what it's just weird it's like because Trump's orange, they all are orange people now. Like they get so tanned. It's very Kim Jong-un, Ben. It's like the haircut, how that's the style. Yeah, it's orange. That's their haircut. The orange face is their haircut. Santa has to do the things. It's so bizarre. But anyway, you got Marjorie Taylor Greene. She goes on Hannity to promote her

treasonous campaign for the national divorce. And they give the most softball questions. And Hannity's like, so tell us about the secession. Tell us about what you're planning. And then she's like, I think that our founding fathers, they wanted to support this. Our founding fathers supported secession. I think it was the last time I checked in history, it was the exact opposite lesson of that. What are you talking about? What do you think your oath of office means when you take the oath of office? And then it says it nonchalantly. Can we start in reverse order though, Brett? Because that's the clip I want to show first, where they're signing off and she goes, that's what our founding fathers

would definitely want. No, Ben, do the voice, do the voice. You just nailed the Marge voice last time you did it. That's a slippery slope. Let's go with this. And do you expect it'll happen? Last question. Well, I think it's something that we should work towards because it's kind of the vision that our founding fathers had for america and i think it's a great one it worked in the beginning we just got it completely out of control so i hope we can get there all right marjorie taylor green thanks for explaining it all to us we appreciate it as what can we pause for a second as well oh was that just on the freaking production of this thing with the game show

style music playing. You didn't add that music? That wasn't your music? No, that's the Fox music as they're talking to her, as they're speaking with her. I mean, it's as if they're asking her the million dollar question, what is the capital of... It did sound like who wants to be a millionaire, like the final question. It sounded like who wants to be a millionaire, like she just had to phone a friend or something. And she's out there nonchalantly talking about secession from the United States. Oh yeah, it's heading there. It's heading there. It's really what everybody wants.

What? And what does Hannity mean at the end when he says, thanks for explaining it all to us? Do you guys remember when we made Hannity so mad that he had to issue a formal press release on his website denouncing one of the videos that we had made? Yeah, we released a video of, I don't have it in a second because I didn't know you were going to bring it up, but we released the video of Hannity talking about, he was speaking about Biden, you know, going on one of his gross rants about Biden's mental acuity, but legitimately because all they do is project everything that Hannity said aligned with Trump perfectly.

So we did one of those videos where you contrast Hannity's statements with videos of Trump not being able to say words and doing all the weird things that Trump does. And Hannity got furious and actually had to, he released a whole article on his website and called up Twitter. He pinned it to his Twitter page. Yeah, yeah. He was a big man. It was called, for those listening, it was called, Buy Hannity.

Right, Brett? It was called Buy Hannity. Yeah, it was called Hannity. I like three and a half million views in the first two hours and then he exploded. Twitter searched that hashtag. It will pop up right away. So we have the clip, Brett, where Marjorie Taylor Greene

talks about how the reason that she believes her plan for a national divorce is super popular is because of the likes and retweets that she's getting. If we've got that, let's play. Unfortunately, I've got it.

I actually think this is a much bigger movement than most people in Washington even realize. And you can take a look at the tweets that I made just yesterday, the amount of likes and retweets that those tweets got should tell people a lot. And they're just not aware of it yet because they don't talk to regular people. That is I mean, that is who the MAGA Republican Party is. Do we have the clip of Romney, Brett, saying that I think Abraham Lincoln kind of fought the war against that?

Play this clip. Senator, what do you think about Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's call on social media for a national divorce, dividing the country up between Republican and Democratic states. You know, I think Abraham Lincoln dealt with that kind of insanity. We're not going to divide the country. It's united we stand, divided we fall. And there's a level of insanity that he's still a Republican. Like, at what point do you look around you and you go, you know what? Perhaps. Perhaps you go, who are these people? Like, he's detested by the MAGA Republicans.

They hate him. Why wouldn't, like... You know what, though, Ben? He really is. I honestly, I disagree with Mitt Romney on nearly everything he believes in. But if he were the opposition, this would be a much different podcast. This would be a much different show. We'd be speaking about much different things. And we'd be able to debate policy with him, tax policy, the best way to get people health care.

We'd be able to actually focus on issues, the best way to get aid to Ukraine. We'd actually be able to focus on issues that help them. Can you believe that Mitt Romney wanted to only have 18,000 EV charging stations when, in fact, we need 32,000 EV charging stations? Is this Bizarro World Midas Touch podcast? But the fact is, I think that Romney, he's an old school guy. He's an institutionalist. He's family, generations of Republicans. And I think there are a good amount of people who do fit into this box where now they've seen this. I think Mitt Romney has built a large part of his identity around his beliefs. And I think they do come from a love of this country and a desire to improve this country. I do think he is very earnest when he speaks. I think he believes what he says. I think he wants what's best for the United States. I can't say that about these other

Republicans. And I just don't think he wants to give up on the way that he grew up in the Republican party that he grew up with. Now, at a certain point, I agree. At what point do you say, well, this ain't that party, but I think he is just such an institutionalist. And I mean, he's an older guy. He looks good, but he's an older guy. I don't think he's going to suddenly

switch parties at his age and throw away a lifetime and generations of being a Republican. But I think at the end of the day, he's old school. He's an institutionalist. He's Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney is a handsome man. I agree with Brett, but not to give him too much credit ultimately my takeaway is and i do agree with a lot of what you guys just said but if you can't leave the party after witnessing everything of these last couple of years after turning to your left and seeing marjorie taylor green after turning to your right seeing george santos after looking up and seeing matt gates and just

being like i i gotta stay i'm gonna be the one to fix this you're schmuck get out of there get out of there and actually do something with you with your power do something with the people who you are able to influence and have them just join team sanity again because his his unwillingness to to not leave is keeping people in this weird MAGA territory. I know he's technically not a MAGA Republican, but it doesn't mean there aren't people who actually do like him that are. And so his unwillingness to remove himself from that situation is actually quite detrimental, in my opinion, to common sense Republicans.

I know that sounds like an oxymoron. No, I get it. There's one thing I want to show you before we take a quick break for get it. I want to show you before we before we take a quick break for a second. I got to show you this. This is Laura Ingraham treating Matt Gates like like a little there's a funny dynamic that takes place on Fox where they don't always agree with it, you know, like each other, too. So, you know, Ingraham's whole view, though, is not that she disagrees with secession. I want to be very clear. She's like, can you basically her point, as I understand it, is can we stop like campaigning on this?

Like, don't you know how we do it at Fox? We like secretly text each other our plans. And then literally like for all the releases of the Fox messages, she was like, you're kind of screwing this up for us. I'm like, you're the news network. What do you mean for us? You're screwing up for us. Like, you're kind of screwing this up for us. I'm like, you're the news network. What do you mean for us? You're screwing this up for us? Like, this is kind of effect.

It's going to make it very hard for us to win elections. Us, you're Fox News. So what Brett's referring to is he's getting a little bit ed, but in the clip, she refers to us like you're hurting us right now. And like, could we just like maybe do it a little bit in secret this whole succession thing here play this clip of laurie ingram treating matt gates and he looks like a toddler in this video raise our gaze and confront the china threat well i i mean you know i i've been i've been singing the china song for you know 20 years 25 years now so i completely agree with

you but none of this is aided by a quote quote, national divorce. Again, that doesn't solve any of these problems. So it's and it's now an argument that the Democrats are going to use against us in 2024. Say, well, those people want the country to be split in two. Even that's not it's not really what she's saying, but it's such an easily caricatured sentiment and so easily distorted that I just don't I don't think it's really worth the worth the bother of even making the argument. I mean, that's my point. You're just giving them a bat to hit you over the head with. So I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is making an invigorated argument for federalism, which I think a lot of voters would ascribe to.

I don't think that it's helpful when we have Democrats trying to divide us, even divide parents from their own children by pushing woke ideology in the classroom. So the way to make this debate constructive is for the House of Representatives under Republican control to use the power of the purse to defund the woke, weaponized federal government from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor to even elements of the Department of Justice and the FBI. And that's where there has to be Republican stridance, not just in press releases and floor speeches, but when we actually get to the debt limit and the appropriations bills. And guess what? Because of the fights that we had in early January, we actually have exquisite tools now to target those agencies and target those bureaucrats with specific votes to defund them and defang them.

Defund, defang, destroy. If you just say, look, if you go, look, Putin sent this guy, I'd be like, okay, you've made it make sense right there. You've made it absolutely make sense right there. I mean, he goes, she's actually making like an exquisite fundamental argument about federalism is what she's trying to make. And what we need to do actually is defund the entire government and just let's default on the full faith and credit of the United States. And we now have an exquisite set of tools. You can't make these traitorous clowns up and you just got to call them out. We'll be right back with more on the Midas Touch podcast after these quick messages. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Lomi.

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and the food cleanup process was such a breeze. Plus they all think I'm super eco-conscious now. If you want to start making a positive environmental impact or just make cleanup after dinner that much easier, Lomi is perfect for you. Head to lomi.com slash Midas and use the promo code Midas to get $50 off your Lomi. That's $50 off when you head to l-o-m-i dot com slash Midas and use promo code Midas at checkout. Food waste is gross. Let Lomi save you a cold trip out to the garbage can. Oh hey, when did you get here? Let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Henson Shaving. Look, everyone knows how annoying cheap razors are. The cuts, the irritation, the frustration. And don't get me started with subscription razor services.

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when you head to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g.com slash Midas and use code Midas. And now back to the video. Let's go. Let's go. Hey, real quick. If y'all are listening, one thing. So you guys, you guys like the callback from the, from the shaving from earlier in the episode that I knew we were going to do that ad today. That's why I said that. So I was actually pretty thrilled about it. And two, I've been growing out my beard now because the Henson gave me such a good shave when I did it in that, in that ad read that people's and the chat started to think like I couldn't grow facial hair.

So now I have to grow out my beard to prove that I can do it so I can use the Henson again. It's this whole thing. But if you are in the market for a great razor, definitely hit up Henson. And if you are in the market for a great composter, definitely hit up Lomi and please use our codes. It's super helpful. They know we sent y'all and it's awesome. I want to talk about not Jordy's shaving of his back. I want to pivot now though to the show.

Thanks, Jordy, though. I want to talk about train derailments in general in the United States. So during the Trump administration, there were 5,103 train derailments in the United States. Neither Trump nor Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao went to a single one of those derailments. During the Trump administration, there were 44,360 train accidents, with many resulting in fatalities. Neither Trump nor Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao went to a single one of these train accidents resulting in fatalities. During the Trump administration, there were 58,920 transportation-related hazardous waste leaks and spills, resulting in 26 deaths and dozens of additional injuries. Neither Trump nor Elaine Chao went to a single one of these waste leak spills, resulting in 26 deaths and dozens of other injuries. Not only did they not go to these train accidents

in their aftermath, it doesn't appear at all either that FEMA was called at all for any of these disasters. Republicans did not say a word. And I want you to compare immediately what took place in East Palestine immediately. President Biden reached out to Governor DeWine, a Republican governor in Ohio where East Palestine is located. Just some additional information about Ohio, Republican governor, Republican house, Republican Senate. The accident happened in a Republican county. The company who owned the train has a Republican CEO, a major Republican donor. And of course, during the Trump administration, they overturned critical and important regulations that would have required things like brakes, like state-of-the-art brakes in trains that carry toxic and hazardous materials that were put in place during the Obama administration. Corporations like the corporation that owned this train specifically lobbied and said, while they are making massive profits, the costs of actually having the safety procedures and protocols the Obama administration wanted would cut into their already massive profits. So please remove those regulations. And Trump did that immediately. And we'll show you this whole

ceremony they had in a second. But first, I just want to show you, because normally the way this works and people are like, why wasn't Biden there immediately? Let's talk about federalism generally and the way the federal government works with states, not the exquisite form of federalism. I was going to ask you, you mean like the secession? No, I mean that when there is a disaster in a state, the way it works, there's a process and a procedure that takes place. And a governor of a state who does not have the resources to take care of their people is supposed to reach out to the federal government and the federal government's supposed to respond and provide the resources. Now, multiple times where there was massive emergencies like the California wildfires,

right? Governor Newsom would reach out in California to Trump. But if Trump didn't like your state, even where the process was supposed to be automatic, Trump would not give your state resources. But here in Ohio, President Biden was proactive. He didn't wait for the Republican governor of Ohio to call Biden. What President Biden did was he called the governor of Ohio, DeWine, and said, whatever you need from me, the federal government will provide you. Ask for it and you've got it. So there were a lot of people like, well, why wasn't he there immediately? Because the whole thing was a setup. And so if you want to know what my criticism of

the Biden administration is, which I'll talk about in a little bit, it's that you have to realize that the Republicans are no different than Vladimir Putin. The same way Zelensky got ahead of Putin's propaganda by saying, here is what Putin is going to do. As Democrats in messaging and conduct, you just have to realize, and this is one of Biden's weaknesses because he is very collegial. He does want to work with people like DeWine. And so he does still kind of have this view like, well, DeWine may be a good faith actor. No, none of these, they're all setting you up. The MAGA Republicans are all bad faith actors. A governor of the state, when a president says, what resources, you would say, please, just give me the resources we need right now.

Because Ohio's Republican governor was essentially in cover-up mode as well for one of their donors and the fact that they were responsible also for burning the toxic substances in the ridiculous way and I think the unlawful way that they did. They rejected the federal government's overtures when the federal government wanted to intervene. You don't have to take my word for it. Take Governor DeWine, the't have to take my word for it. Take Governor DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio's word for it. This is what he said at a press conference a week or so back. Look, the president called me and said anything you need. I have not called him back after that conversation. I will not hesitate to do that if we're seeing a problem

or anything, but I'm not seeing it. Now, if you don't want to take my word for Donald Trump rolling back the critical regulations that would have stopped and prevented this train derailment from happening in the first place, let's just look at Donald Trump's own words. He tweeted on August 3rd, 2017, I'm continuing to get rid of costly and unnecessary regulation. Much work left to do, but effects will be great. Business and jobs will grow. And here's an article from Fortune from September 24th of 2018. Trump rolls back train breaking rule meant to keep oil tankers from exploding near communities. And here is the performative press conference around this time when Trump was in office

where he goes out and he cuts the red tape and he's like, look at this stack of papers. These are all of the regulations now. Look at these stack of papers from 1960. Look how less paper there is. We need to get rid of all of this paper. It is the most asinine and idiotic argument, but the media doesn't want to call it out. So we'll become the media. We'll tell the truth here. Watch what Donald Trump did when he was in office. Play this clip. We are a nation of explorers and pioneers and innovators and inventors and regulations have been hurting that and hurting it badly. We are a nation of people who work

hard, dream big, and who never ever give up. We are Americans and the future belongs to us. So together let's cut the red tape. Let's set free our dreams. And yes, let's make America great again. And one of the ways we're going to do that is by getting rid of a lot of unnecessary regulation. Thank you very much. Thank you. So this is what we have now. This is where we were in 1960. And when we're finished, which won't be in too long a period of time, we will be less than where we were in 1960 and we will have a great regulatory climate.

Okay? Come on up here, Chris. Come on. You worked so hard on this. Elaine, are you okay? Come on. Yep. You okay?

Yep. Fine. She has a lot to do with it. She has things called roads. And bridges, right? Yep, fine. She has a lot to do with it. She has things called roads and bridges, right? Yes. Okay. One, two, three. So in addition to removing the critical regulations,

that clip also highlights the infrastructure projects that never took off the ground during the Trump administration. Roads and bridges and all these things. Just you wait. Also, it highlights, and for those who are just listening to the show, standing behind Donald Trump in the beginning and who he references after was Elaine Chao, who was the transportation secretary under the Trump administration, Pete Buttigieg's current role. And he specifically mentions her roads and bridges as he's cutting the red tape, the metaphor, the red tape that's in front of him and asking and saying that he is rolling back regulations from 2017 to 1960s levels. Now, of course, not every regulation

is a good regulation, but you shouldn't just start indiscriminately cutting regulations back to 1960s levels. I'm going to say we've made a lot of advancements in safety. A lot of important developments have happened since 1960. There's probably a reason why that stack of paper is higher. And if you guys remember Donald Trump, one of his like big pitches and one of the big things that Republicans often say and run on is for every, you know, if you want a new regulation, well, you need to cut three. If you want to get one in there, you can't just do that indiscriminately like that. Like these rules are in place for a reason. They are there to avoid situations like the situation that we just found ourselves in, in East Palestine. And it really is the perfect kind of morphing together

of Republican policy of deregulation without actually thinking about the ramifications of it and corporate greed. And these two things go together very well because Republicans are in office specifically to try to help their oligarch friends bottom line. That's it. So when they hear from people, you know what? We could save some pennies here. If you remove these railway safety rules, this whole braking system nonsense, the other ones are just cheaper. And the fatalities, the disasters that will come from it, we'll figure that out. But we can really

use the money if you could cut these. And then Trump gets into office or these Republicans get into office and they start slashing those regulations, it's the end result and it's why that's so dangerous. And it's why you need to support corporations. I'm not saying corporations are inherently evil, but you got to be able to, as a government, put a check on them, especially in dangerous scenarios like with the railway industry. I mean, there was an important regulation that they rolled back. Brothers, brothers, brothers, two major glaring things with that clip. One, watching Elaine Chao throughout that clip was very interesting. Now in a 2023 context of that relationship, she is giving him some interesting glares throughout his, I mean, she's looking at

him like this, this is an insane person in front of me. Now they've honestly had some sort of relationship prior to whatever's happening right now in 2023 with donald trump attacking her and mitch mcconnell but it's very interesting watching what we just watched here from that perspective just knowing how their relationship has unfolded and two that clip gave me a mini anxiety attack and i'm not like saying that to be cute. That clip was insane. For those listening, I mean, I know we said it, but I just want to emphasize it again. Donald Trump had two giant stacks of papers and connecting them was a piece of red tape. He said something to the effect of Elaine Chao, she knows roads. She does roads and things like

bridges. It's a little ironic that he's talking about government waste while having just piles and piles of blank pieces of paper that are just going to go in the garbage. He's probably not even going to recycle them. He's going to throw them in the garbage after. He is showing you the epitome of government waste, ironically, in his attempt to try to say that he's cutting government waste. But they're really just making things more dangerous for Americans. You know. I'll tell you one thing that's really, really sad about, there's so many things that are sad about this whole situation, the disinformation. But when you see these videos of despots and dictators and authoritarians just from the past. Don't you recall those images where the authoritarians basically stealing from the poor and having the poor people in these horrible

conditions, right? And then what do they do? What do you see? They then go into the communities and the people are like, we need help. We need help because they're kept in these horrible situations. By the way, it's also like the mafia, by the way. And they throw them bread or they hand out like a dollar bill. And those images that you see are usually in authoritarian style regimes where like a king comes into town and everyone's begging and please, please, please. And that is kind of no different than what the Republicans have created there and want to create. And they acted out in the same way. And as I see the images of like Donald Trump going in there and bragging about bringing

12 pallets of water, does everyone know how many water bottles are in one pallet? 2,880 bottles of water in a pallet. Do you know how much a pallet of water costs? 2,880 bottles cost about $500. So Donald Trump brought 12 pallets, he said, of Trump water because he wanted to promote that. So he basically came there with about $5,000 or $6,000 in water bottles. That was his contribution. And then he stops at a McDonald's and says that he knows the specials. I know the specials better than you do to the people in the McDonald's. He buys people McDonald's burgers, brags that he knows the menu better, and then leaves and then says, I'm the reason that the federal government is now helping out. It's because of me. You now know that is 100% completely false. I want to show you this clip though of Pete Buttigieg from earlier in the day because again, Pete Buttigieg, you need to be there earlier. You

need to be there earlier. Look, here's the thing. The way the narratives develop, this is what I said at the outset of the show, kind of reminds me of the red wave, right? Because what happens is you have all the MAGA propaganda networks. They see Biden's historic visit in Ukraine. You have to realize what links are happening here because it's very much central planning in the MAGA Republican Party of the plan. They see this incredible, historic, tear down that wall moment, right? They've created a whole propaganda infrastructure dating back in the 70s to attack that, to counter the success of that. So they put it into work. And how do they put it into work? They go, okay, we've got this train derailment. It's in a Republican state. We can kind of control the optics here.

So let's just harp on that. And other media networks, Democrats, are so caught off guard because, as I mentioned at the outset, there's like 55,000 train derailments or something like that in the Trump administration where Trump offered no help. And here Biden offered help from the outset. So the mistake is like Democrats and pro-democracy didn't even think like that this could be a thing. Like how could they create this narrative? And that's why that's my criticism. You have to know that anything they're going to do is going to be that. And you just have to get ahead of it at you realize it's federalism. The governor of the state should say, my state needs help, come in here. And then the president responds to that. And then you can go, well, this involves interstate issues. So there is federal jurisdiction, but still the federal government doesn't take over a state. That's not the

practical way that it works. The bad faith action almost happened from the outset where DeWine covered it up and the gov, all the Ohio Republican leaders covered the thing up. But here's the thing when I say it's this red wave kind of narrative, because then it translates to large media networks. So the right media, right, the right wing extremists, they're saying this. And then the other media networks are like, oh, well, Biden must not be doing good because you have to feel like we got to say something. And they're not equipped to do what we did here, which is fact check it right away. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. How long did it take us to fact check it here? Six minutes?

You kid. Large media networks don't have six minute slots. That's not their format. They got two idiots yelling at each other in the screens and say, he did a good job. He did a bad job. He did a good job. He did a bad job. Good job. Bad job. Good job. All right, let's take a break from our sponsors. That's how they're built. They don't have a six minutes of here's what happened, folks. And then what happens is I start then seeing comments the same way with the red wave of people who then internalize it. And they go, we're going to lose the red wave. We're destroyed. We're over. And then I'm like, no, you're not. And then we, the pro-democracy community, have to go, no, no. And what you actually see though happening in the days of the past, this propaganda information would be like a tsunami, if you will, of disinfo that just floods the zone. That's how Trump took office, right? And then the pro-democracy community that's formed, we're like, okay, the media is failing us.

We're engaged. We're in charge. Push back, push back, push back, push back. Push back against the red wave narrative, not because I just don't like the red wave narrative. It's because it's inconsistent with the data. So also, similarly, when you give me this fake narrative right now about East Palestine, I'm not pushing back on it because I love President Biden or Democrats. I love the donkey logo of the Democrats and I'm rooting for the Democrats. I'm just letting you know the stats. I'm telling you how many train derailments there are. I'm telling you what Trump did. I'm explaining to you the cause of

the train derailment. I'm telling you the action that Biden's taken. I'm telling you the action that Governor DeWine, the Republicans' leadership, has taken. I'm explaining to you how it all happened. And then I'm saying, here's what's up, but here's the thing. Do not underestimate, though, the intelligence of the American people sometimes, though, because if you actually look what's going on now in Ohio, yes. Are you going to have any time a former president shows up like Trump and start showing up and buying people McDonald's tech? If I went out in the district, if I went out and said, I'm buying everybody a free McDonald's show up at the McDonald's on, you know, wherever a lot of people I think will show up for the McDonald's. But you can't deduce from

that that, oh my God, everybody loves Ben. They want McDonald's. That's what they want. Ben, this is all exactly what I was speaking about in the beginning of the show though, which is that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans will exploit any vulnerabilities that there are in the ecosystem, whether it's the legal ecosystem, whether it's the media ecosystem, whether it's local news, they will exploit anything they can for their propaganda and for their political gain and for their power. And what we are seeing here, if you really break it down into the blocks of it all, it's sick. It's sick. It's sick, sick, sick. This guy stripped back regulations in order to make this corporation wealthier. Stripped back, right? Specifically

in this area, it was requested by this company, North Fork Sovereigns, specifically. Then there's a train derailment that happens. They exploit that tragedy. They make a big story out of it. They try to blame the Biden administration for it. They try to blame people who judge for it. Then, like you said, Ben, he shows up like a fascist dictator, like a sort of guy in the mafia, a mob boss rolling through the neighborhood with bread. A couple thousand dollars. For me, it feels like Pablo Escobar going into Medellin and throwing out dollar bills. That's what it feels like.

And then he hands out hats. He turns this disaster scene into a campaign rally. Let's be real. He turned this disaster scene into a campaign rally for his presidential campaign. And then what does he do a day later? He goes online and he brags about the ratings. He brags about his ratings. That's disgusting. From trying to help people in a disaster area. And this is a post that I just

pulled up that Trump had just recently posted on his, it looks like his truth social account that says total people that saw coverage of him in East Palestine, 170 million social plus traditional total social media users that saw the coverage, total traditional viewers that saw the coverage. You know all these numbers are fake too. Dude, this isn't about your press coverage. This isn't about your social media impressions. And to make it that, it's so incredibly sick. It's not about your fricking ratings. So while he is bloviating about ratings, you have actual competent officials trying to lend all the help they can and are meeting roadblocks along the way, but are still doing a good job on the ground.

But you have Pete Buttigieg finally today, and it took us a while to come around to this clip, but we got there. We got there. Pete Buttigieg today finally clapping back on this disinformation when asked, OK, so how could how could Trump help the situation right now? And Pete, to his credit, was very direct here. This is Pete Buttigieg at his absolute best. Here's the clip. You mentioned a national political figure who's decided to get involved. It sounds like you're talking about Trump. And then you said, I need your help. How can he help? Well, one thing he could do is express support for reversing the deregulation that happened on his watch. I heard him say he had nothing to do with it, even though it was in his administration.

So if he had nothing to do with it and they did it in his administration against his will, maybe he could come out and say that he supports us moving in a different direction. We're not afraid to own our policies when it comes to raising the bar on regulation. And I've got to think that him indicating that this is something that everybody, no matter how much you disagree on politics and presidential campaigns, can get behind. Higher fines, tougher regulations on safety, Congress untying our hands on breaking rules, all the other things that go with that. That'd be a nice thing for him to do. So as I said, the same tactic, though, that Vladimir Putin uses to spread propaganda, it's the same as

Fox, it's the same as Republicans, the same way Zelensky rebutted it by saying, here's what Putin is going to do any time that there's a situation. And I know it's going to be constant. You have to constantly be on. But that is the new way that you have to almost project where their outrage is going and then just put it right again. I'll give you examples. The Chinese spy balloon, right? So rather than even wait a day, you would want to address the situation. So you have to address it. And then you also have to say, here's what they're going to say because they're liars. But this happened all the time during the Trump administration, and they never even recognized it because they were so incompetent that they weren't even aware

that multiple Chinese spy balloons were over there. We are able to identify it because we're actually focused on our national security here. This happens. You see what's happening. You as a Democrat have to go. You could do both. You could walk and chew gum at the same time. You can have Biden being diplomatic, but you have to have somebody out there right away saying, look, GOP state, GOP governor, GOP house, GOP Senate, GOP donor company, Trump rolled back regulations, 51,000 train derailments in the Trump administration. He never visited once. Here's what's going on. Here's what they're going to do. He's going to throw hamburgers at you.

We've offered him. He threw hamburgers at them. It's not even hyperbole. He threw hamburgers at a group of people who need systemic ways to address what they're going through. He threw hamburgers at them. But then here's the thing, though. I don't want to underestimate, though, that the propaganda is effective. There's a reason why propagandists in history use propaganda. They don't use propaganda because it doesn't work. They use it because historically and psychologically, these tactics change behaviors

in ways that are counterintuitive to the individual who's being deceived by the propaganda's own interest. They'll vote against their own jobs. They'll vote against raising their own wages. They'll vote against their healthcare. They'll vote against their benefits. They'll vote against their education. They'll vote against their jobs. They'll vote against their infrastructure because woke Legos. Well, Legos become woke. And that's so upsetting because my kid plays with Legos. Now there's woke Legos, a Lego. There's a Lego that's missing a limb. And there's a figure that has anxiety. Oh my God. Legos are going woke. Oh, what's, what's next? What's happening next? Chat GPT, this AI that I've seen everywhere. You're telling me that the chat GPD, the AI it's,

and by the way, Fox platforms, this shit, like it is like, like this is a real thing. Let's get the idiot, Charlie Kirk, the biggest moron in the world. Let's have this idiot show up and talk about a chat GPT here, play this clip. The Google VP of government affairs. So again, what is artificial intelligence, if not an extended arm of socialism worldwide? That's right. This is gonna become a woke super weapon. And I encourage your audience to take some time and play with chat GPT, which should really be called chat DNC, which is nothing more now than going to be an instrument of trying to make the left's takeover of the West more efficient.

Go play with it. For example, say, hey, can you write an essay about Jordan Peterson or something of the like? We'll say, sorry, I cannot do that because my parameters won't allow this. We're doing some of this next segment because it is stunning when you actually start digging into it. So that's exactly what we're going to do. You dig into it. The AI is reflecting that people who say racist things are racist and people who say hateful things, like it is literally showing them a

mirror of who they are. And they don't like seeing it ever. And for those who don't know, ChatGPT is an AI service. I actually do encourage everybody to go check it out. The technology is terrifying, not because it's woke, but because it's going to take away all of our jobs. You're not kidding. It is absolutely stunning. And colleges are worried about it because you could literally write me an essay about the American Revolution in the voice of Charles Dickens. And I just gave my midterm breath though. You know what I did though for my midterm? Oh yeah, I forgot. As a professor, Ben's a professor.

Professor Ben. Oh, I couldn't get that word out. That was wild. For my midterms, I said to the class, open book, open laptop. You should have the same tools that you will have- In the real world. laptop, you should have the same tools that you will have in society. So utilize those tools, but I want to make sure the answer's right. But you could utilize, if you want to use the chat GPT, utilize it, but you utilize it in the right way. You better know what it's saying. But no, a hundred percent. But it's one of the most impressive wild things, but you're exactly right. What goes in is what's going to come out. And if you're asking about things that you believe in that happen to be hateful, discriminatory, glorify violence, whatever it is, then you're going to get

a result that is to that effect. And so it is very much just holding up a mirror to you. I mean, you're arguing with artificial intelligence, just like, let's step back for a second and think about just how ridiculous- Here's the thing, before you take a step back, one of the inputs that it will have about Fox, for example, as it scours all databases, it will have the input of the depositions of the Fox hosts. It'll have their text messages. It will have their emails, which is all in the public court filings. So if you're asking Chad GPT to write an essay about the accuracy of Fox, it is going to come back inherently and say it's not accurate. It's actually going to do a better

job than the large media networks do that both sides issue. And this is the thing with our messaging, right? It's simple. Like this is simple. That's why I say chat GPT refuses to be gaslit because it's just AI. It's just responding to what the data is. And that's why when people are like, oh, this is like a lefty show, this might have something like a lefty, because I want people to have better jobs, because I want people to have healthcare, because I think that people should have education, because I believe people should have equality and be treated like with humanity and decency, because I support our troops, because I believe insurrections are bad, because I believe global pandemics are bad, that all of a sudden I'm like, oh, you're very, no. The data inputs would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, maybe the radical people, as I've said before, the people who cheer on

COVID. They're like, give me the COVID. I want to sniff that COVID. Give me the COVID. That's the right wingers. The insurrectionists, they're political prisoners, secession, secession. So if ChatGPD is just taking the data and Fox, you put Marjorie Taylor Greene on every day to talk about a national divorce and they are saying, does Marjorie Taylor Greene support the constitution? They are going to say no because the data input is a very clear answer. No, it's objective. It's like when people would complain about, when they would do those studies, they'd be like,

90% of the press coverage about Trump is negative. It's like, yeah, he's trying to ban religions from entering the country. He started an insurrection. Of course, it's going to be negative because he's doing negative shitty things all the time. That's what happens. The attack on Chad GBT from the right. I just want everyone to realize this is actually one of the funniest moments that we're all living through at the same time. And I just want everyone to appreciate it in real time because them attacking chat gbt just like you guys so eloquently pointed out is not the own that they think it is on on the libs all they're doing is just further exposing themselves to how hateful and bigoted they truly are because at the end of

the day the damn thing is an ai that just uses data collected from them and their experiences to form whatever you know theory that it's talking about. And so them attacking this thing, all they're doing is just looking in a mirror and they don't like what they see because they're jackoffs. I just asked it, is Fox News good for society? I just asked ChatGPT this. And it gave me a very nuanced, this isn't a woke answer that it gave me. It's a little long to read the whole thing here on the show, but it says, as an AI language model, I do not hold personal opinions or beliefs. However, I can provide information that may help answer your question. Fox News is a popular cable news channel. Some people believe that Fox is beneficial for society because it provides a different perspective on the news and a counterbalance

to liberal outlets. Others argue that it promotes bias and reporting and misinformation, which can be harmful to society. Critics point out that it's been known to spread conspiracy theories and false information. Additionally, some studies suggested those who watch Fox News may be more misinformed about important issues than those who do not. These can contribute to a more polarized and divided society where people are unable to agree on basic facts and beliefs. On the other hand, supporters of Fox argue that the network provides a much needed conservative perspective in a media landscape dominated by liberal outlets. They also point out that many other news organizations have their own biases and agenda. Ultimately, whether Fox is good for society or bad for society is a matter of personal

opinion. What a woke answer. Well, you weren't going to read it. Just because you didn't read the last sentence doesn't mean you didn't read the whole thing, right? I just want to further reemphasize my point there. All this damn thing is is a mirror and they don't like their reflection. They need to look inward. It's an honest, amazing piece of software.

Let's report some good news also from the Biden-Harris administration announcing an action that will save approximately 850,000 low and middle income homebuyers and homeowners an average of $800 per year. It's a tangible step, right? The Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Federal Housing Authority will reduce FHA's annual mortgage insurance premium by 0.30 percentage points from 0.85% to 0.55% for new borrowers. The mortgage insurance premium is the monthly fee that homeowners with FHA package mortgages pay to insure their mortgages, which is paid on the top of their monthly principal and interest payments. This announcement is part of the administration's broader efforts to lower costs and give American families more breathing room.

So here's just an example of an expected impact. Let me try to put those in real world terms. A family buying a home in Detroit with a $200,000 mortgage will save about $600 per year. A family buying a home in Cincinnati with a $300,000 mortgage will save approximately $900 per year, $400,000 mortgage about $1,200 per year. And it just, look, it just putting some money back where you can into the hands of people so they could spend that money elsewhere. It is a small step, but a good step in trying to actually do things that benefit most Americans, not the 1% of billionaires and decamillionaires who, as Biden says, get rich. It's all good. We just need to make sure that everyone's treated fairly here. You shouldn't get an unfair advantage because you're a billionaire or a millionaire or a decuminator.

You shouldn't be paying less taxes than workers. Because let me be clear, the true engine of the American economy are workers. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise. And workers need to be treated with dignity, respect, and compassion. And Brett, talk about some of these Democratic wins because I think it's a great way to kind of put a nice bow on the show because to the point of it is the red wave type of narrative, right? The whole doomsday scenarios that the media creates are not actually what's going on in the ground. And still, even after the great Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonior and others have pointed this out, the media goes right back into buying the right wing's crap. They go right back into that just false cocoon, if you will, and continue to spread it. And then it's like, oh my gosh, Democrats are outperforming expectations.

Well, you got Marjorie Taylor Greene representing the Republican Party as their leader, calling for national divorce and secession, that could be a reason. Americans recognize that, hey, maybe it was the Republicans' fault for what happened in Ohio. Maybe people are realizing those things are happening, Brett. Yeah. Well, and it goes back to your point earlier on that, listen, people are smarter than the media, than a lot of people give the average American credit for. I mean, people see through the nonsense. And when I see all this craziness and chaos happening on Fox News, when I see them speaking about Legos, when I see them platforming Marjorie Taylor Greene

to speak about seceding from the United States, as much as it makes my blood absolutely boil, I go, they are making the same mistake again. Keep on talking. Keep on talking, Marge. Let them speak. Do not interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake. And we have said this before. And the results are bearing it out. I mean, we look at there were some special elections this Tuesday, which I don't think are getting nearly enough attention, but Dems won big in all of them. I mean, we won a legislative special election in New Hampshire and overperformed Biden's 2020 performance. Democratic incumbent Chuck Grassi will hold on to the Ward 4 seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives after the

special election. And Grassi beat Republican David Walker by 12 points. They had tied in the general election in November. It was a plus nine seat in 22, won by 12 points. That's a plus three gain. Won a congressional special election in Virginia, also overperforming Biden here. Democrat Jennifer McClellan won the Virginia 4 special election, defeating a MAGA conspiracy theorist. This is one of those like super deranged MAGA people. It's the kind of person that Fox news would love to put on their network. She won by over 48 points, people, 48 points. She got 74.22% of the vote compared to the Republicans, 25.68%. And Democrats won this in 22 by 30 points and in 2020 by 36

points. So now to go from 30 points, 36 points to 48 points, it just shows you the energy that is out there. And this also makes McClellan, Virginia's first black Congresswoman, a historic event. And this election was of course, due to the death of Democratic Representative Donald McEachin, who died in November. We also see performance from Democratic Cassie Jamers Armstrong, who won her legislative special election in Kentucky, also overperforming Biden to win the Kentucky State Senate's District 19 seat. A plus 31 Biden State Senate seat was now a plus 54 Democratic seat. I mean, these are no joke shifts in the numbers here. And also as of right now, Democrats are also overperforming Biden in the

Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin, which are nonpartisan elections. But these Supreme Court elections, folks, are something that we all need to be paying attention to. And thankfully, the people in Wisconsin are paying attention because the turnout was absolutely astonishing. It soared by roughly 30% compared to the most recent primary for a Supreme Court election. And the surge was the highest in Dane County, home to Madison, which had young voters, which had more liberal-leaning voters there. The pro-democracy candidate out there, Janet Pretusiewicz, and I apologize if I'm totally butchering her name, but she was the top vote-getter out there. And she is now facing off in April against one of the most deranged MAGA extremists out there. And there is so much on the line

here. A Trump ally, Daniel Kelly, advanced along with her, it was the top two vote getters, to the general election. What was that? Ally. What did I say? Ally. Oh, a Trump ally. God. See, when you're just reading things, sometimes it happens. Hey, English is tough. Hey, you were speaking for two hours now. And I mean, Kelly is someone who's anti-abortion,

opposes marriage equality, is endorsed by Trump, supports election denialism, literally helped devise the plot in Wisconsin to have this whole fake elector system in Wisconsin. This is who is going against her. According to testimony given to the January 6th committee from a former state party chair, Kelly had extensive conversations with other party insiders about creating this group of non-sanctioned electors to sway the election in favor of Trump during the certification process on January 6th, 2021. So there is a lot at stake here. I mean, after Roe v. Wade was struck down there, an 1849 Wisconsin law took effect, making it a felony crime for a doctor to perform an abortion unless the mother could die.

This has major implications on the maps that are drawn in Wisconsin. This will have major, major impacts on the country at large. So we should all be paying attention to this race in Wisconsin. Donate if you can. And let's make sure to preserve democracy because the states, as David Pepper, friend of the show, puts it, are the laboratories of autocracy. And we need to be on the front lines in our states to protect democracy out there. And when you talk about the laboratories of autocracy, some of the things that I like to think of is some good examples in juxtaposition, which we should really drill down and kind of talk about more on another show, is look at the policies Gavin Newsom is implementing in California and compare that to the policies of the laboratories of autocracy like Greg Abbott in

Texas and DeSantis in Florida. Both of those fascist governors are pushing the extremes to really try to lean in on every performative fascist thing. And Newsom's trying to innovate and do things that actually help people and improve people's lives and enhance people's freedoms and rights. And I think I'll close with this funny tidbit is that Elon Musk moved, it was announced that Elon Musk moved his factory back to California. He moved it to Texas. And in theory, you want to go there and say, we're living the libs. Well, then you go to a place where they don't believe in the governor, doesn't believe in climate change, and doesn't believe in electric vehicles.

And so you very quickly realize, wait a minute, I'm allying myself. I'm just joking. I'm allying myself. I'm never going to live that one down. We've been talking for a long time. You're bound to make it. The alliance that I'm creating is with someone whose sole idea is that my whole business should

be destroyed. And it's the same thing. I understand reflexively, it's like, okay, let's go to Florida. DeSantis is like lowering the taxes over there. And by the way, running the country into completely the ground, but then doing all the performative stuff to say, this is a place, this is the free state of florida while like actually like crushing and destroying the state but but then you wake up one day i just said the country got him all right ally i had to get you back for alley everybody take it easy all right two hours break it up but then you know but then descent but then desantis will wake up one day and go you know ap you're teaching ap black history you are now officially banned

ap disney you're too woke i'm taking over disney what actual authoritarians do using the government to take control of private business and pick winners and losers. That's just like what Vladimir Putin does. That's what authoritarians do across the world. Now, as we mentioned, these laboratories, if you will, the laboratory that we have here at the Midas Touch Network is one of unapologetic pro-democracy content here. And it's why I said maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes ago, together sometimes we can't look for like, okay, this person's going to jump in and save us. That person, we need to form the community together and we are the change. You are the change. The community is the change. So when you watch these

episodes and you talk to them about your family and to your friends and coworkers and colleagues and talk to them about the fact that, wow, there are people out there who are just calling it like it is. We're calling it like it is together. And we love this country. We love our constitution. We don't just say, just America first because it's a word. We actually take the actions that support our institutions and support our constitution and support people's freedoms and support your ability to work with dignity, with great working conditions and support your ability to get healthcare that you deserve at affordable, affordable prices so that it's not

affecting you negatively. We are fighting for our veterans abroad. We are focusing on these issues because of our love of our country. I was just going to add, and despite the fact that this particular brand of MAGA chaos is its own thing that we are dealing with right now, it really, if you go through history, it's bread and circuses, right? You could go back to the ancient Romans. It's bread and circuses. They want to create diversions. They want to go through giving you McDonald's. They want to go through saying, oh, we're a tax-free haven and you don't have to be woke here. And then you get there and all of a sudden your property insurance values are skyrocketing through the roof. Or you get to Texas, you get lured in with these grand promises and realize, oh, I can't find talent here because

they don't like diversity and they don't like education and they don't believe in climate and our lights keep going off. And so we're trying to be an electric vehicle company. So it's also like an ancient kind of strategy that we are still seeing to this day employed for nefarious means. So we all need to be on guard. We all need to remain vigilant. That's what we're doing here at Midas Touch. That's what you're doing there as the Midas Mighty. And we are so thankful to be working together as one community to push this forward, to brush aside the diversions, to kick back against the nonsense, and to say reality is reality. We care about this country. We want to see everybody succeed here. And we just want to be normal, folks. Enough of that. No doubt about it. Make

sure to check out patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Join one of the memberships there. We're not funded by outside investors. So if you want to help grow this independent media platform, you'll love the exclusive content. We got to set up on our Patreon before the end of the month. I really want to do a zoom chat with everybody. So let's make sure we do that where we can come and ask us questions. We'll make sure we load that. So go to patreon.com slash Midas touch, have a chat with us directly on the zoom chat.

We'll be there. And so we'll, we'll post the link on that. Check out store.midastouch.com for the best Midas Touch gear, all made in America, all union made. That's store.midastouch.com. Jordy, I'll let you take it away, but give a quick shout out to our two sponsors one more time before you send us out. Shout out to Lomi and Henson Shaving. Make sure if y'all are in the market for those products, use our promo code, use our links. They're right

in the description of the video. They're in the description of the audio. It's easy and it's awesome. And y'all are awesome. Love you guys so much. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. The best part of waking up? Maga Tears in my cup. Check out the new MAGA Tears Mug available now at store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com. It's 100% union made right here in the USA. I know I'm not tired of winning yet. How about you? Get yours today.